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After months of planning, weeks of intense preparations, and two months enjoying a trip around the world, Kari and I have now arrived in the UK. In actual fact, we arrived a week ago on Friday, ten hours later than scheduled ( never fly aeroflot if you can possibly avoid it) but very glad to be here. The days since have been filled with getting bank accounts and mobile phones, catching up with and looking for work, and finding a flat in North London that we can call home for the next few months. We moved in today, to a two bedroom place in Harringay, though looking around it hardly seems like we’ve moved in; the vast majority of our belongings are languishing in customs waiting for all the paperwork to clear. We’re hoping they’ll be here before Greenbelt as camping at the festival could be tricky without a tent. ...

Subtopia: The City in the Crosshairs: A Conversation with Stephen Graham (Pt. 1) Fascinating discussion of urbanism and militarism and the way in which global cities are the axis along which most power runs. (tags: militarism power urbanism) Owls lost in translation (kottke.org) A summary from a Chinese knockoff of Harry Potter. Quite amusing – it makes me wish I’d picked some up while we were there. (tags: china harrypotter piracy) Shrub & The Spesh’s World Tour of London ...

Make yourself at home in Switzerland | Travel | Guardian Unlimited “one little Swiss city is going its own way by creating a Stadt Lounge (city lounge). A public living room complete with sofas, lamps, rugs (they’re actually Japanese gingko trees, but use your imagination here), tables and a great big red carpet rol (tags: switzerland urbanism)

(gs) Ruby on Rails 502 Proxy Error .: (mt) KnowledgeBase Apparently proxied requests on mediatemple time out after 20seconds. That’s fine in normal use, but explains some problems I’ve had with admin functions that involve uploading and processing CSV files. (tags: mediatemple proxying rubyonrails)

Revealed: MI5’s role in torture flight hell | UK News | The Observer Sadly it’s not much surprise that MI5 have been complicit in the CIA’s black ops and extraordinary rendition (tags: extraordinaryrendition mi5 secretservice) Click of the Light / Start of the Dream - Books & Culture David Dark turns his attention to The Arcade Fire’s albums (tags: arcadefire daviddark music) CoffeeGeek - Cafe Culture Downunder Commentary on Australia and New Zealand’s coffee/espresso culture. A good counterpoint to my blog entry on the subject from a few weeks ago. ...

David Byrne: NYC: Knee Plays, Interactivity vs. Storytelling, The Living Rock Interesting thoughts towards the end on whether videogames can ever engage us in the same way as other artworks, and the role of narrative in that. (tags: art davidbyrne emergence engagement videogames) Freed from the ’tyranny of the urgent,’ Julie Lee sings again - Tennesseean Coverage of Julie’s new (self-released) album, which is (naturally) wonderful (tags: julielee music)

Our time in Asia is going very well indeed, but updates and photos may be slow coming as my laptop, temperamental for the past few months, is now completely refusing to boot and the nearest Apple Store is some thousands of miles away. More soon.

BBC NEWS | ‘Single’ euro train fare planned Great news. We’re very much looking forward to being able to travel by train. (tags: environment trains transport) “Bush Commutes Libby’s Sentence” (Harper’s Magazine) “This act can only heighten concerns about the putrid state of justice in Bush’s Administration, and it must heighten our resolve to stand against it.” (tags: abovethelaw georgewbush harpers scooterlibby)

I have a new hero and her name is Mika Brzezinski | Guardian Unlimited What really strikes me in the clip of Mike Brzenzinski refusing to lead with a Paris Hilton story is the refusal of her co-presenters to take her seriously. Sexism is clearly alive and well, and something to be broadcast to the world on MSNBC. (tags: broadcast journalism)

Ghost Cities Of 2100 - Forbes.com Interesting consideration of which cities may disappear, but would be better if it considered potential impacts of oil shortages and carbon rationing. I wonder if such trends could save Detroit as suburbs become more difficult places to live? (via cityofs (tags: detroit ghostcities urbanism)